Five Reasons To Be Hopeful About The New Red Sonja Movie

SOURCE: Robert Rodriguez reteams with Rose McGowan in 'Red Sonja'

All I can say is THANK GOD!

The last I heard, they didn't have a director or a writer locked up for this movie and the front-runner for the part of Red Sonja was Megan Fox - i.e. the Magic Girlfriend from Transformers and a woman who apparently couldn't manage the reported directive from director Michael Bay to "just to look hot" when being told what to do during a scene.

And now... oh, now we have Robert Rodriguez set to produce and probably to direct. We have Roy Thomas writing the script, according to Internet Movie Database. And we have Rose McGowan set to play everyone's favorite amazon.

And sure - I can understand people being leery of a director casting his girlfriend in yet another project. If it were any other producer, I'd be worried too. However, there are five reasons why I'm not worried... except because this whole affair sounds too good to be true.


1. Robert Rodriguez has proven time and time again that can make a good, stylish action movie. And however you may feel about Sin City as a comic or as a film, I don't think anyone can deny that Rodriguez perfectly captured the spirit of Frank Miller's comics on camera. This same eye for detail could only benefit a new big-screen adaptation of Red Sonja.

2. Rodriguez is reportedly a big fan of Robert E. Howard's writing and had been trying - before Sin City came out - to take over a long-stuck-in-limbo King Conan movie. If I recall correctly, nothing ever came of it since Rodriguez wanted to film the movie entirely in the Texas Hill Country which inspired so much of Howard's vision of Hyboria and he didn't want to have a big-name actor play Conan. While Sonja isn't precisely a Robert Howard creation, she was born of his work and a director/producer who knew of that history and respected it could only help the production.

3. According to USA Today, Rose is a big Red Sonja fan and a regular reader of the current comic series. While I don't think an actor necessarily has to be a die-hard fan of a series in order to play them well, I do think that it can help with particularly complex characters. At the very least, it can't hurt.

4. Rose McGowan - unlike most of the other actresses who were having their name thrown around for the part - can actually do action scenes. Even before she started appearing in everything Robert Rodriguez did, she's had a reputation as a tough chick. And for what little it's worth, she's a natural redhead.

5. Roy Thomas is writing the script. As in, the man who brought Conan from the pulps to the comics. As in, the man who adapted one of Howard's historical heroines into one of the most beloved icons of post-modern fantasy. Sonja's literary father... writing a script for her. Call me crazy for thinking that's a pretty good sign that The Powers That Be know what they are doing, for once.